July 2009

It’s been a little while since I last highlighted some of the community sites built around Spotify. Lots of new ones have appeared and some significant improvements have been made to existing sites so here’s a short list of a few recent sites.

We Are Hunted have created a dedicated Spotify chart with top tracks and artists. Another neat feature is the constantly changing playlist of the 99 hottest songs in the world right now.

Share My Playlists have done a major new release incorporating all sorts of cool social features.

For a full listing of today’s additions please have a look at the Google Doc. As with every update not all albums listed may be available in your country and some tracks previously available may no longer be playable due to regional restrictions.

For a full listing of today’s additions please have a look at the Google Doc. As with every update not all albums listed may be available in your country and some tracks previously available may no longer be playable due to regional restrictions.

Late last week we put the finishing touches to a very special project we’ve been wanting to share with you for a while now. After many weeks of burning the midnight oil at Spotify HQ in an effort to squeeze into it every drop of musical goodness, we’ve finally completed work on the Spotify app for the iPhone and sent it over to the nice people at Apple.

We thought it might be nice to show you a video of what we’ve built for you.

Our iPhone version is very similar to the Spotify you’re already familiar with and will allow you to listen to your music even when you’re not connected to a network. The application should be available in a few weeks for premium subscribers – we’ll be sure to let you know as soon as it’s in AppStore.

We have four pairs of VIP tickets to the event to give away to Spotify Premium subscribers in Sweden so if you’re interested in winning leave a comment on the blog. For a list of all the acts head over to the official website and check out the playlist that Mattias put together for us with tracks from most of the confirmed artists.

Earlier this week the nominees for the Mercury Prize were announced and we put together a little playlist of the nominated artists that are on Spotify. Who will be this year’s Elbow? Who’s your favorite nominee and was anyone left off that should be there?

One of the challenges all music services face is providing a wide range of music for users with all sorts of different tastes. We’ve worked hard to add classical, punk and indie content from different sources and adding more music is an ongoing process that we continue to work on.

As part of this process we’re really happy today to let you know that we’ve reached an agreement with IODA to bring their extensive catalogue of music to Spotify. IODA is a leader in digital distribution, marketing, and technology solutions for the independent music industry and is a great addition to our growing catalogue. IODA will provide Spotify users with music drawn from a catalogue of nearly two million tracks from over 50 countries and spanning a broad variety of styles including rock, electronic, hip-hop, metal, punk, indie, world, latin, jazz and classical.

It was a beautiful weekend and the office is a little quieter than most weeks but we have updated our music catalogue today. We added 5,998 albums and singles, in total 73,142 new tracks are now available.

Additionally, the audio book Free which was previously only available in the UK is now available for all users.

For a full listing of today’s additions please have a look at the Google Doc. As with every update not all albums listed may be available in your country and some tracks previously available may no longer be playable due to regional restrictions.

British rapper Speech Debelle released her debut album, Speech Therapy, earlier this year to rave reviews. She was kind enough to do a little Q&A with us in support of her latest single, Better Days, which Spotify Premium users can listen to starting today. Also, check out Speech’s official website for news and info about upcoming gigs.

Update: Just wanted to congratulate Speech on her Mercury Prize nomination, well done!

Where are you?
South London, UK

Describe a typical day?
Wake up and check emails, head out to an interview followed by time in the studio then maybe go to a friend’s.

How’s the European tour going?
The tour is in October and at the moment I’m on the festival circuit, playing at Glastonbury, Latitude, Bestival and the Secret Garden Party.

Best/worst ever gig?
The best gig was Pussy Parlour at Glastonbury a few weeks ago, mad fun! I guess the worst was Dirty Boots at Glastonbury, only because it was the seventh gig in three days and I had lost my voice, not nice!

Your last single – Go Then, Bye. Sounds like a tough situation. Did things resolve themselves?
Time resolves things, we still talk every once in a while but it’s not always appropriate anymore.

Favourite place to hang out?
The studio, and it seems the mechanics for the last week cause they can’t seem to fix my car stereo that they fitted!

Favourite city and why?
Right now I’d say London because it’s where the pound is. Saying that though I’ve been to St. Lucia and although pounds are what they don’t have and what they want, they still seem so much happier than us London folk!